Title: Face On
Summary: Leo and Mike's perspectives during and after his fall on the planet Mirinoi.
Prompt: #12 "Tears"
Timeline: Galaxy ("Quasar Quest" through "Redemption Day"); Mike is 26, Leo is 21
(Mike)
The first lesson a soldier learns is that death is an unavoidable consequence when you choose to pick up a weapon and defend your country (or, in this instance, your planet). He spent four years of his life training in GSA, fooled himself into thinking he knew what he was getting into when confronted with schematics and information regarding varying species or planets, until it was simply common place to process things like that.
Terra Venture would be the place where he would put training to good use, not only in battle, but as Stanton's chief officer of the colony's overall function. As a part of GSA's military branch, Mike was among those whose status in joining Terra Venture was a guarantee, while his family's inclusion to join the colony into space was left in the hands of fate (or so the brochure would have them believe). His parents weren't too crushed that they wouldn't follow him, only that they would miss him immensely when he left. Leo, on the other hand, was the one person in his family that wanted to join the exploration into space and he realized he wasn't chosen, the reaction was subdued one moment and explosive the next.
Mike deemed it was for the best, his brother was loose cannon in the sense that he never stopped to think of consequences of his actions. Give him a dirt bike, Leo would pull tricks that would give their mother a heart attack and never think twice about what would've happened if he lost his balance. Dare him to walk across a narrow wall and Leo would do it just to prove his bravery and his agility to the naysayers. If he saw someone in trouble, Leo would jump straight into the fray without accessing the situation (a "flaw" he himself shared). Leo had all the mettle to make a great soldier and capable leader (selflessness, and the generosity of a saint), but he had no control over himself, his desires got the better of him and he could never commit himself to a schedule, let alone a job.
Leo would cause more problems than solutions on Terra Venture and the moment he declared he would try and follow him, Mike had only one thing to say: "Don't even try to follow me, little brother. It's not like you could anyway, seeing that you don't have a passport." Oh, yes, he'd been very confident that that little obstacle would stop Leo altogether. However, the look in his brother's eyes when he rebutted, "I don't have a passport yet," gave him serious pause. Leo, for all his nobilities, could be as sneaky as they came and he knew enough shady people that Mike began to believe that his brother would end up forging a fake passport just to go to outer space.
The next two weeks he spent in on the colony, prepping to leave, did little to alleviate the fear that Leo would show up, victorious in his endeavors. However, caught up in the final training exercise on the moon, Mike allowed himself to forget his worries and simply focused on the faux-mission at hand. When he'd gone to see what happened with Kai and Kendrix, he'd barely paid attention to the man who lowered his head and averted his gaze completely.
Which made it all the more surprising to learn the man next to him was in fact, his little brother. It was all he could do not to snap as badly as he did, the wholly embarrassed look on his brother's face should've been enough, but it wasn't.
Panic swirled underneath the disapproval he displayed as he dragged his brother off to the side to chastise him, Leo had no idea what he was getting himself into. "This isn't some joyride, Leo, anything could happen. The colony may never go back to earth, ever." But not even that seemed to damper his brother's determination or defiance, his response simply made Mike believe Leo had no idea of the ramifications of his actions. Had it not been for the "divine" intervention of the girl, Maya, Mike was sure they would've been at each other's throats for longer than they were.
Face to face with what he'd trained for, Mike put his personal quibbles aside and fought the manbugs off the girl they were so intent to capture, forgetting completely that his brother wasn't supposed to be there with them. When the monsters retreated and there the awkward realization that a portal straight out of Sliders was open just across the way, Mike's training kicked in. Maya was willing to venture back through the tear in time and space to save her world; he would let her do it alone.
At least, until Leo volunteered himself as defender of Maya, then he felt obligated, if only to keep his brother out of harms way. "You're not going anywhere," He'd told him. If he had his way, Kai to drag his brother back to the Heliship. He fooled himself into believing that Leo would listen, go back to the colony and wait for him there. His brother proved him wrong again and his expectations of getting things back on track continued to unravel. Confronted by honest-to-God monsters out of a nightmare, he let himself get lost in the adrenaline of battle and tried to ward off the hulking mass of red and gray that decided to single him out of the group. It was stronger than anything he ever expected to go up against, knocking away every punch and kick that he threw at him.
The moment he was thrown against the stone alter, there was very little thinking involved in pulling the sword from its resting place. For starters he never assumed they were immovable objects to anyone except a chosen few, only that it was the closest thing he could grab that would save him from being chopped in half and it did. He swung the sword and parried Furio's blow without a second thought, the burst of energy the saber released was unfathomable. It was both alien and familiar to him, it felt right to hold it.
When the others had surrounded him, puzzled over his admiration of the weapon, it felt just as right to tell them to try and pull the other swords from the stone as well and his sword sang a sweet song of elation when the other sabers joined "him" in freedom. "We've been chosen!" Maya proclaimed with equal happiness, but the magnitude of her words flew over his head as reality came crashing down him the moment the ground began to shake. Furio had done something to earth, it was as if medusa herself had arrived and scorned the ground with her eyes. Leo hurried away from the trembling monster, hopping over the hardening ground in the process. Mike struggled to maintain his calm as he took up the rear and pulled Maya away from the calamity that befell her village.
Kai and Damon, at the head of the pack, leading them through the wild like men on familiar terrain, though it felt they had no sure direction in mind besides "far away". In retrospect, Mike couldn't help but wonder if that was part of the reason they'd been caught. Furio had materialized out of nowhere, a pack of manbugs surrounding him as he laughed at the futility of their actions. He struck the ground a second time, creating a tremor strong enough to split the earth on contact. Without so much as thinking, he pushed his little brother and best friend out the path of the deteriorating soil, but didn't react fast enough to save himself. The ground opened up, belching hot air and dust into his face. He felt his stomach enter his throat when the weight of his body yanked him down, eliciting a scream that - under any normal circumstances - would've never made it past his throat. He collided against the wall of the cliffside, his feet and right hand barely managed to find a hold on the craggy rock before his weight started pulling him down.
He barely heard his brother call out his name over the sound of his own breath combined with the echo of tremor rumbling below. The earth, or lack thereof, beneath the ends of his toes began to crumble rapidly, the realization of what was about to happen to him dawned the moment Leo appeared above, arm outstretched to pull him up and over the chasm.
"Mike!" His name tumbled from his brother's mouth in rush of air and sound, he could see his fingers stretching past their limit, the glove pulled away from the sleeve as they wiggled just few inches above him. "Give me your hand!" He hesitated for the slightest second before raising his occupied hand closer to Leo's, the precarious footing he had on the wall slipped sending him a further away from his brother. Sufficed to say, the response he gave his brother wasn't the one he wanted to hear. He had to hold on, he wanted to hold on, but his arms were beginning to tire and his legs were ready to give out on him.
Without so much as thinking, he fell back on his training and raised the hand holding the saber and told his brother to take it. Common sense, in any other case, would've told him to let go of the sword and try for his brother's hand. But as terrified as he was (and he was terrified), every fiber in his being was telling him to get the sword to safety.
Every second lost to his little brother's protest, Mike could feel his fingers losing their grip. Part of him wanted to be angry with Leo, hearing "I can't" from the one person who tended look "impossible" in the face with laugh was not what he wanted to hear right now. He raised his head as much as he could, craning it back until he could see his brother's face. "Of course you can, you have to. I can't hold on any longer," The tone of his voice was resignation, but not in the sense that he wanted to die.
He knew there was no chance for him now, just for his brother, just for the sword whose hilt was burning in his hand now. He raised his arm as high it could go, a few moments later he felt Leo's fingers dancing around the edges of the blade and finally grip it like his life depended on it. The burning in Mike's fingers stopped, the urgency alleviated from his chest as his body relaxed, ready to rest. The ghost of victory that flashed across Leo's face to mirror the wane smile that stretched his lips vanished, tumbling back into terror. "Mike, you can't let go!" And from there his mind ran on automatic. He heard himself rattle the hurried words of encouragement and pride to his brother, watched his brother's resolve crumble, felt it clash with fear that churned in his chest as the last remnants his foothold fell away.
Despite everything that brought them to this moment, despite all his reservations on Leo's wild behavior, he was proud of the man he'd grown up to be. There no doubt in his mind that Leo couldn't carry on without him because he was stronger than he gave himself credit for. None of what he was saying would matter for him in the long run, but he needed Leo to know that.
The weight of his body pulled him down quicker than he could've anticipated the alien world above fell out sight and in the blink of eye. Leo's distraught expression became a speck before the fog of the fiery world below obscured his vision. The weight his body sent him spiraling out of control, colliding against the jagged walls the narrower the space became. For all intents and purposes he should've been dead after the last blow to the ribs, but the narrow space gave way to the open world of fire below. Mike closed his eyes, praying the last seconds of his life wouldn't be a living agony. A hot flash of pain spread across his back and for the longest time, the concept of time, death and life were foreign. He was weightless, without a body or a care in the world. Voices whispered but he didn't understand them, let alone know they were speaking directly to him.
The moment he truly became self aware, both of himself and the man occupying the same space as himself, was when "his" feet touched down on the colony that left him behind. His movements were slow, deliberate, searching for the vapor trail of energy that had chosen to occupy the space colony thriving with life. Mike wasn't so much seeing as he was feeling himself move along the dusty trails of the mountain dome. Little my little, the fog began to life from his mind until the craggy outlines of a cave's innards could be seen through the darkness that surrounded him.
He should've been dead, singing with the angels on high, but he was "here", alive in some capacity. Questions of how he came to be where he was, how he survived the fall into the pit of fire swirled in his mind like a storm, yet almost as quickly as they came, they were silenced with a heated "Be quiet." The voice was stern, hardened like a stone and enough to startle him into a silence of fear.
Was he losing his mind or did his consciousness suddenly develop a personality of its own? Staring out into the darkness, he searched for something familiar to latch onto and found it in the form a flickering pulse, it ran on staccato beat. The further he moved further into the cave, the clearer the sound of steel clanging against steel cautioned him to move slower. The moment the round of in the corner became clear, the energy he'd latched onto became sickeningly recognizable. Leo was alive (of course he would be, why wouldn't he be?) and at that point unrecognizable in a uniform that could've only belonged to a Power Ranger, but he knew his brother when he "felt" him… Somehow.
He was fighting the monster, Furio, from Maya's world, the one that had "killed" him and he was losing. Furio was relentless in his attack, leaving Leo barely any time to defend himself whenever he parried his attacks with the sword he'd given him. Yet, the one time he did get a hit on the monster sent Furio over the edge of an already precarious sanity. Furio tossed his sword aside and Mike was suddenly aware of his helplessness. Trapped in a nightmare he looked on with wide eyes as his brother was tackled and held tight in a grip he couldn't break free of. Crimson filled the gloom of the cave, electricity coiled it's way around Leo like a merciless snake, eliciting an unguarded screamed of pain that coincided with Mike's the moment he was engulfed in an explosion that left no chances of survival.
He could feel himself duck, roll away from the explosion as the fire traveled through both exits of the cave. He was safe, but his brother? Good as dead by everyman standards. "No, no, no. No!" Mike felt his heart implode, his already fragile hope crushed into nothing coincided with the cold calculation of a perspective detached from his own. Rising from the crouched position against the wall, he continued onward as the fire and smoke cleared away.
There wasn't a trace of Furio left to spit on, but the one body that mattered laid on his back, covered in rubbed, stared up at him as he approached. If he had tears, Mike would've shed them without shame. Leo's hand reached out to him, imploring aid. Mike, to his frustration, remained where he stood and chose to observe the battered young man. Leo. "Mike," Leo barely spoke above a whisper before he lost consciousness, hand dropping from its raised position. In the background he could hear the cries of the others, Kendrix and Kai he recognized, the others were strangers to him. The other occupant of his mind reacted to the voices outside, stepping back from the prone body across from him. Choosing then to play the dominant personality, Mike felt himself being forced down into what he'd come to recognize as his sub-conscious. The man was going leave him Leo there, leave him to die of injuries that would've killed any ordinary man.
"Wait! Don't leave him like this," He pleaded. Cold indifference was the immediate response to his distress.
"What happens to him is none of my concern," The man replied. Mike, however, hardly let the man's opinion dissuade him. "Please… he's my little brother. He'll die if you leave him like this," He said.
The man seemed intent on ignoring his pleads, never moving from his place, but never approaching Leo. "Please, help him." There was a beat of silence before the man was finally moved from his position. Mike watched as he bent over and pulled Leo from the rubble.
Every part of his brother looked ready to snap under pressure, yet he didn't even flinch when he was thrown over his shoulder. He was none the wiser to his rescuer, Mike felt like crawling out of his skin as he listened to Leo's labored breathing. His lifeforce throbbed like a beat unable to find its rhythm, almost as if to ask if he would stay on or go. "C'mon, Leo stay with me now," He hadn't spoken the words, he didn't even think his brother heard him until there was an unfamiliar tug on link he would later realize connected him directly to Leo.
"Leo?" A second tug followed the steady breath that filled Leo's battered chest, lifeforce struggling to reaffirm itself. Sunlight filled his vision as they stepped out of the smoky aftermath of the explosion, four figures stood in astonished relief as Leo was returned to them, alive. The man placed him on the ground gently, Leo grimaced but remained oblivious to his surroundings.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me," The man groused, genuinely irritated. Mike didn't respond, he observed his brother, holding tight to the fragile bond between them as he listened to his heartbeat.
To say he grew accustomed to being possessed would be a lie. For most of it, he was hardly aware of his surroundings, the "man" he would come to know as the Magna Defender preferred not to have a "backseat driver" haggling him constantly. His already blurred sense of reality simply got worse the tighter the warrior's grip became on their shared consciousness. The link between himself and his brother was at it's weakest when Leo was awake, which didn't give Mike a lot of hope in communicating with him on any level. Fragmented images or feelings would make their way down to him, yet if he tried to do the same in return there was no sign that Leo ever received his messages.
He never seemed to be able to do much of anything unless the Magna Defender was asleep or lost in his own world, plotting vengeance or mourning over the loss of his son, Zika and their home. With these distractions, Mike learned more than he ever wanted to about the man piloting his body. The kind of hatred that boiled underneath his cool exterior was nauseating, he felt ill anytime it leaked down into his cramped space. He sympathized, borderline-pitied the warrior, but the lengths he went for retribution were enough to frighten him.
His path crossed with the Power Rangers (his friends, his brother) on more than one occasion and it was all Mike could do not to throw a fit when Defender treated them less than kindly. As par for the course, his brother chose to believe the warrior was not the rotten bastard he depicted himself as and he wasn't far from the truth. There was an honorable man underneath the rage that fueled him, but Mike couldn't see how anyone, let alone Leo, was going reach that part of him. Despite Leo's efforts, he chose constantly to make an enemy of his brother.
A spirit (or whatever he was at the moment) couldn't faint or zone out what he was hearing or seeing. He smashed his fists against whatever solid surface he could find when his brother "took the bullet" to stop the Defender from endangering a girl's life or attacking the Defender head on for the Lights of Orion, as it always ended with Leo on the receiving end of injuries. If Mike could, he would've punched his detainer and strangled his brother for being so bullheaded. "Leave him alone! He's not doing anything to you!"
"He's getting in my way!" And it was simple as that with the Defender; he saw only what wasn't helping him achieve his goal as a hindrance. Things continued to escalate the closer everyone got to finding the Lights of Orion, Mike spend a good period of his time trying and failing to put a wall between himself and the warrior's hate, it did nothing but zap him of his energy, the energy he used to maintain a constant awareness of the outside world during his imprisonment.
The Magna Defender hardly resembled anything one could call "human" (or "humanoid") by the time he decided the entire colony was worth sacrificing to destroy Destruxo's force field, keeping him from the Lights. With every blow the Torozord's spear made against the invisible barrier, angrier Mike himself became. If the Defender succeeded in destroying the shield, the central dome of the colony would go up in ball of fire strong enough to destroy the base maintain the life support systems. If the explosion didn't kill the inhabitants, the cold of space would.
However, with the added distraction of the Galactabeasts and the warrior's own vendetta blinding him to typical measures that kept Mike a mere spectator to the more heated events, the fissure in wall that kept him under the Defender's thumb was easy to find. At first, It started off no bigger than his fist, but he would learn the more he used it, the bigger imperfection became. The first time he chipped away at it, he managed to latch onto the conscience the warrior would've sooner forgotten than acknowledge.
Everything he stood for or believed him came rushing through the fissure, overwhelming Mike, clashing with the anger that hardened heart. It took half of Mike's energy to amply it, triggering the pain that attacked the metaphysical heart of the Defender, crippling him completely. The control he exerted only lasted for so long, as such, Mike was never realized as the cause of his pain until he tried to attack Trakeena. His morally got the better of him, Mike had chosen then to try and talk some sense into the embittered Defender. For lack of a better of word, his little pep talk didn't work. He might've been able to physically impede the Magna Defender, but he'd gotten Leo hurt in the process.
Mike wasn't even sure why Leo had chosen then to become sensitive to his presence, regardless, he was distracted from his own predicament long enough to suffer a nasty blow to the chest from Treacheron's katana. Mike expected the Defender to rub an extra pinch of salt in an already burning wound, but he was too bewildered to do anything except force him back down into the cramped space of their shared minds.
In the silence of their brooding, Mike reached out and grabbed a hold of the link with all his might. Leo was oblivious to any pain he might've experienced when he was brought back to the Astro Megaship, his mind was especially devoid of thought. Reluctantly, the others left to fight Treacheron without him, it was about all Mike knew and all he managed to convey to Leo, whose own connection to the other Rangers had filled in the blanks with visions of defeat. Mere seconds before he awoke, Mike became privy to fragmented images of his dog tags dangling in negative space and the picture of them together, a year before Terra Venture would prepare to leave earth. It was the one time Mike managed to connect with his brother completely, allowing him to see into his subconscious.
The first thing he'd become aware of was how much Leo missed him, how angry and grief stricken he'd been in his earliest weeks on the Terra Venture. He didn't understand why he lost him, he didn't feel worthy of the power he'd passed on to him. His grief, combined with all of his insecurities could've overwhelmed him in the same way the Magna Defender's loss did him, but the others, Kendrix and Maya especially, kept him focused. Most importantly, his duty as a Ranger gave him something to fight for and for that Mike was glad.
The day of his release from the Defender's possession, the first day of personal freedom in God-knows-how-long, was surreal. The Magna Defender was chomping on the final bit of his sanity, revenge was now the only thing he thought about now. Laments for his son, his some, they became a rarity. Now it was about getting the mission accomplished and nothing more. Thus it would seem fate was largely on his side the day Scorpius chose to attack the colony for its fuel reserves. Visions of Scorpius' demise filled his mind like a slideshow, some of the depictions of the insect warlord's end left him feeling ill. Sitting the dank space of his (or their) mind, Mike waited for the Defender to make his move, he pondered how long he would be allowed to play tenacious that chipped away at the stone that encased the warrior's heart before he did something.
If he could do anything at all, that is. As far as he's been pushed into the darkness, the Defender never did anything about the flaw in the control he exerted over him, which made Mike wonder if he was actually aware of it or assumed Mike's emotions were simply interfering with his motivations.
The Torozord towered over them, blocking out the light of the overcast day. The beast wasn't unlike the Galactabeasts in the sense that it had a mind of its own and was every bit connected to the Defender as it was to him, but it hardly ever acknowledged his presence until now. As its master spoke to him, the Torozord implored that Mike help stop him. It might've wanted to see its master's world and son avenged but the Torozord stopped at the sacrifice of a thousand lives as the exchange. There was no honor in such a victory, especially since there was no certainty that their actions would kill Scorpius. More than a little humbled by the request, Mike agreed to help the Zord.
At first, trying to find his way around the combined energies of the Torozord and the Magna Defender had been tricky, but the second time around made for an easier experience. Like clockwork, Leo and the others arrived to stop the Defender from causing any more damage he already had to the flaming sinkhole he created in an effort to archive goals. Though he would manage to fend the Galaxy Megazord off, the combined efforts of Mike and the Torozord weren't so easily battered.
While Mike had simply reached through the fissure created by the Defender's lack of awareness, the Torozord had smashed it completely, allowing the both of them focus their energies on Magna's heart. The Torozord and the Defender separated in a flash of light, Mike felt himself thrown off balance when the warrior hit the ground, writhing in agony. He took no pleasure in causing the warrior pain, however, if it stopped him from harming innocents than Mike would do it without a second thought.
Freaky Tiki's attack had come from nowhere and frankly, wasn't something neither Mike nor the Magna Defender was anticipating. The monster's stone spearhead pierced the armor like a hot blade, entering through the left of the Defender's shoulder blade. Pain shot through the warrior's chest, crippling them both with a little more than just its blade. Mike couldn't even let out a futile cry of protest as he watched Leo damn the consequences and rush to their aid, effectively ignoring the second attack of the Tiki monster.
His brother's body soaring through the air as he pounced on the monster was the last thing Mike remembered clearly before his handle on awareness fragmented like mirror. What he heard came in broken, intelligible conversation, a mixed bag of emotions from the Defender and the presence of another unfamiliar to him. Laid out in the darkness of his mind, Mike waited for the pain to ebb and his strength to return.
He dreamed of smoke and fire billowing overhead, tickling the back of his throat as he breathed in and out. The smell of wildlife, grass and dirt made its way into his senses, slowly drawing him out of unconsciousness. For the first time in a long time, he felt his fingers clench under his power, his legs with the rest of his body when he moved.
Gravel crunching beneath someone's feet drew his attention away from himself; he exhaled slowly trying to get a fix on his surroundings, which was all too bright and lively for his tastes now. It took the longest time for him to regain cognitive processing, he felt sluggish, drowsy and completely out of sorts. The most he'd managed to come up with was that he was free, but the Magna Defender was nowhere to be seen. Mike opened his eyes and was greeted by the aftermath of what he could only assume was the handiwork of the warrior or the Tiki Monster.
Fumbling for a hold on the surrounding rock formations, Mike struggled to get his arms and legs moving properly. All the above struggled to hoist his body up off the ground, it took at least a dozen or more attempts before he managed to pull himself into awkward standing position where he was practically bent over from trying not to fall. The overcast sky, the low hum of energy beneath his feet and general pain let him know he was alive. He had no real direction, as he didn't know where he was, so he started moving in the direction he assumed was forward and not backward.
His feet crisscrossed each other as he moved along the uneven ground, he stopped on more than one occasion to catch his breath or allow his stomach a chance to recollect itself. When he finally made it over the hill it took Mike a moment to realize the figures across from him weren't intangible forms he could only view through the mind's eye. The sound of his boots sliding across the shifting dirt got an immediate response from everyone save his brother. "Mike!" Mike suddenly felt out of place in his combat uniform, yet it seemed to matter little them.
Kendrix was the first to reach him, wrapping him in a hug that made the smallest of his bruises hurt like the major ones, but he didn't care. He returned the show of affection with a single arm around her waist, Kai and Maya came up beside him, all smiles, followed by Damon (a man he knew only through the tidbits of his brother's memories). They were all happy to see him back, but what about Leo? Over the shoulder of Kendrix, Mike noticed his brother had not moved from his place facing the pit, he held the sword of the Magna Defender with the reverence of a man in mourning. It had given him pause enough that his mind began to compensate for the lost time between his sudden freedom and the absence of the Magna Defender, coming to only one conclusion. The Defender was dead, either by his own hand, Scorpius' monster or the Rangers.
Stepping forward he moved Kendrix aside, he looked on at his brother with the faintest hint of a smile. "Leo." His brother's posture changed, his back straightened like a ramrod as he turned to face him. Mike knew he was looking at entirely different person than the one he felt behind, but it was still his little brother. Leo stared at him like he was a ghost or a treasure to good to be real, the Defender's sword went lax in his hand and the heave of his chest gave way to a dazed smile.
"Mike." Despite the affirmative nod he was given in response to the name, Leo didn't move for a good second or two before rushing toward him in a full on run straight out of the climax of a movie. Social conformities were tossed aside for the one moment that let them both know that this was real; Mike wrapped his arms around his little brother, a million regrets and what ifs fell away in an instant. "Mike," Leo repeated his name, this time on the verge of tears.
As a kid, Mike might've made light of the situation, but he wouldn't dare now. Leo pulled away from him to look him over once or twice. He was an absolute mess of tears, his cry was somewhere between a hysterical laugh and a sob. "You're back, you came back." Mike, too tired to convey anything but a smile, hugged him again.
"I'm really back," He confirmed.